In this April 5, 2012, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks at the University of California at Berkeley, Calif.

Libertarian-leaning loyalists of the two-time Republican presidential candidate have quietly taken over key-state GOP organizations, ensuring future fights with the GOP's establishment and laying the groundwork for a future presidential candidate.

Their new relevance, especially in early caucus states Iowa and Nevada, could clear the way for such a candidate, perhaps Paul's son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. It's the next step in the group's ongoing development, from rambunctious malcontents of just a few years ago into more serious party activists bent on reshaping a party they say has drifted from its conservative roots.

"It's the maturation of the movement," said Matt Strawn, a former Iowa Republican Party chairman not affiliated with Paul. "If you're going to keep the franchise going, you need a candidate."

Iowa's state Republican governing body this month voted to re-elect as chairman and vice chairman two of Paul's top 2012 Iowa caucus campaign aides. Last year, Nevada Republicans similarly elected top Paul supporters to its two spots on the Republican National Committee.

All this despite Paul having lost Nevada's presidential caucuses last year to Mitt Romney, and finished third in Iowa's behind Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Paul backers also have made inroads into Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, in part vestiges of his 2012 presidential campaign.

Indeed, across the country, thousands of Paul's followers, many disillusioned after fighting in vain for his failed bid of 2008, regrouped in 2012 and dove head-first into the behind-the-scenes Republican Party delegate elections, fighting tooth and nail with old-guard GOP establishment activists for national convention seats.

And while Paul retired from Congress this month, his disciples picked up House seats in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan and Texas last year.

"In 2008, we came in thinking we could change the world," Nevada RNC committeeman James Smack said. "In 2012, we felt we at least had some say in it."

Yet, it's not clear how receptive the wider party will be to party members who agree with the GOP's core fiscal tenets, but break sharply on national security and foreign policy.

On social policy, Paul lines up with the GOP's mainstream, opposing abortion rights and gun control. On fiscal policy, he shares the view of many in his party that the current tax code, and the Internal Revenue Service, should end. But he is out of sync with the GOP broadly in supporting a return to the gold standard and ending the Federal Reserve system.

He is most sharply at odds with his party on military and international policy. He opposed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign aid to Israel and the option of U.S. military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a position that cost him in the week leading up to last year's Iowa caucuses.

Pro-Paul state GOP organizations have been quick to distinguish themselves at times from their state's senior elected officials, as Iowa GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker did last fall in calling for the ouster of a state Supreme Court judge over gay marriage, a position GOP Gov. Terry Branstad did not publicly advocate.

Paul supporters' simmering tension with the party establishment, which overwhelmingly supported Romney, spilled over during the Republican national convention in Tampa, Fla., last year. Paul's supporters protested loudly pro-Romney committee votes to replace delegates from Maine who backed Paul and for a rule narrowing routes for delegates to future national conventions.

The contempt from the more mainstream elements of the GOP is mutual in places where Ron Paul supporters are on the rise.

In some states, establishment Republicans connected to the party's donor base have complained that the newcomers are hostile to candidates who didn't fit with Ron Paul's ideology.

These critics have pointed to measurable dips in state party fundraising in Iowa. Likewise in Nevada, where Romney and the RNC set up a shadow campaign last year out of doubts about the state GOP competence.

National party leaders are reaching out to these new leaders.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus, elected in 2011 to resuscitate the RNC's fundraising, has sought out Paul supporters as he seeks re-election.

And the view is emerging within the broader national party that it's better to have them inside the GOP organization, where they will be expected to perform in fundraising and, ultimately, winning elections.